By Michael Johnston
I love Fort Worth because it is the only major city in Texas that I know of that has viable and affordable inner-city neighborhoods.
This is what makes Fort Worth unique.
I love history, I love old things, and Fort Worth just really cherishes older neighborhoods and older buildings. When I first came to Fort Worth, the day after I graduated from law school, my wife, Catherine, and I bought a house on the other side of TCU. I worked downtown so I would drive up and down University Drive and would see the house we live in now in the University West neighborhood. I just loved the house, now 98 years old. There’s an unusual architecture about it.
On one particular day, there was a for-sale sign in this yard. Catherine and I bought the house even though we already had a house and a mortgage payment. The idea of having two was not very tenable as a young lawyer, but we later sold our first house.
I’ve come to love the University West neighborhood even more because of the really unique things I’ve learned about it. We have new houses being built on this block. Yet, right next door are the oldest houses in Fort Worth at Log Cabin Village, and everything in between.
We have people living in this neighborhood who are in their 80s and our newest neighbor is maybe 8 weeks old. You have huge mansions at one end of the block and one-bedroom duplexes at the other end. It’s that diversity that makes it wonderful, beautiful and stable.
TCU is what this neighborhood is all about. We’re all avid, adopted Horned Frogs, regardless of where we actually went to school.
It’s so wonderful to live near a university. In the mornings, we sit out on the front porch and see all these students running by. It’s kind of hard not to be inspired by their absolute energy. We just get depressed in the summer because the students aren’t here. I can hardly go to sleep without a party going on. It makes you young.
The neighborhood is a nice place to walk with the Log Cabin Village, the Fort Worth Zoo and Colonial Country Club nearby. And where else in the world can you live and walk to all the sporting events? The TCU football coach lives three or four blocks away. The baseball coach lives a few blocks away, too. And the chancellor lives down the street.
Also within walking distance, although it’s a bit of a trek, are the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, Will Rogers Coliseum and the world-class museums.
The other things that are anchors of our community are our churches and our elementary school, Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center.
Some interesting people have lived here.
You’ve heard of Mrs. Baird’s bread? Well, grandmother Baird’s old house is right across the street. Ever heard of Harris hospital? The Harrises live right behind us and actually established their house as the first TCU infirmary.
There’s a triangle spot in the neighborhood that was a dumping ground for couches and trash. It became the first Adopt-a-Spot in the city when that program started in the 1980s. It was just dirt, but it’s been fixed up over the years.
Old neighborhoods are fragile, but this is a strong one with a lot of community support.
University West is a wonderful place to live.
Michael Johnston, a longtime attorney who graduated from Baylor University Law School, lives with wife Catherine, also a Baylor grad, in the same home they bought about 40 years ago.
University West
Total population: 1,424
Male: 59% | Female: 41%
Age
0-9: 10%
10-19: 23%
20-29: 2%
30-39: 8%
40-49: 9%
50-59: 13%
60-69: 20%
70-79: 9%
80 and older: 7%
Education
No degree: 0%
High school: 9%
Some college: 15%
Bachelor’s degree: 37%
Post-graduate: 39%
Race
White: 97% | Asian: 0% | Hispanic: 1% | Black: 0% | Two or more: 2%
Click on the link to view the schools’ Texas Education Agency ratings:
Source: Census Reporter, BG 2, Tract 1042.04, Tarrant, TX
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